“We discovered that it was OK to have a little high-brow as long you have a lot of low-brow. That’s entertainment value. The one thing you want to avoid is the middle brow, because the whole world is frigging middle brow at the moment.”
– Jon Langford

Sunday, January 02, 2005

Waiter, There's a Horse Feather in My Duck Soup

So if anybody asks me what bowl game I watched yesterday (pause for you to ask), I'd reply:

"Huxley v. Darwin."

You see, since Christmas I am the lucky owner (thanks, Amy) of The Marx Brothers Silver Screen Collection. Save up or use your gift certificates but run out and buy it, or have a birthday soon and ask. It's probably too big to shoplift, and I wouldn't suggest such a thing anyway, unless you have a coat like Harpo's that holds candles lit at both ends and swords and fishes.

What will you get? Endless laughter in the form of The Cocoanuts, Animal Crackers, Monkey Business, Horse Feathers (the wonderful send-up of college life, mostly about sex and football, of course, that we watched Jan. 1) and Duck Soup.

If Groucho isn't the great American comic character of the 20th century, I don't know who is--fast-talking, odd-walking, so in love with his own voice it keeps talking after it does him any good; he is America, in a way. And as for the sublime silliness of Duck Soup, now it reads like prophecy. Bet even S.J. Perelman never saw a politican like George W. coming.

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About Me

George markets only for the forces of good for a living. He has a paid hobby that involves eating, drinking, and writing, things he’d do for free, which is almost what he’s doing it for. In a previous life he taught mostly illiterate and generally ungrateful college students how to write. He has been a body guard for Jodie Foster, a walk-on dancer with French avant garde troupe Maguy Marin, a film programmer, a judge at an Iron Chef style competition, a political activist, a textbook author, a bassist in a band, a two-time league winning fantasy baseball manager, a union local president, a pr flack helping run a red carpet at an Angelina Jolie event, a janitor, a chauffeur to folks from TC Boyle to Andrei Codrescu, a delivery man to Plato's Retreat, a reluctant writer of a non-snarky intro for Colin Powell, a radio DJ, a corn detassler, an escort van driver, a rock journalist, a lab assistant for a company that made everything from mouthwash to super skin lubricant, and even, once, a poet. His biggest brush with fame was when Julie Christie fondled his tie, a tie George Lopez belittled to 1000 people minutes later. The best thing about him is his wife. His dogs aren't bad, either.